Wand Island
By Sharan McQuack, Launchpad's wife.
Loosely based on, "Shipwrecked" in Disney's Ducktales #4
No Launchpad in the next two issues of US.
No "Ducktales" comic book in sight.
If you think I'm buying DW or Rescue Rangers, think again.
I hope others are. Then it makes sense, IF it sells.
I find it hard to believe a Ducktales comic wouldn't sell, too. Only Boom doesn't seem to want to sell what I want to buy.
In US # 399, I liked Launchpad making like David and defeating a Goliath. Without armor, yet.
NO, Launchpad was NOT naked. (Too Bad!)
US is not that kind of comic book.
Magica was flying over the Thousand Islands, on her broom.
"In my crystal ball, I saw a long-lost magic wand on ONE of these islands! But I could not tell WHICH island! There aren't literally a thousand of them, but there sure are plenty!" Magica said, to her broom, secure in the knowledge that it can't talk back.
"At least I can ignore the bare rocks! I saw palm trees and animals and greenery on the island...but that still leaves lots and lots of islands to search! And the wand is buried in the sand, on one of those islands...someplace!" Magica spewed.
"Only it's the size of one of those giant souvenir pencils amusement parks sell! How am I supposed to find such a small thing when I don't even know which haystack the needle is in?" Magica wondered.
MEANWHILE...
Launchpad was flying Mr. McDuck to Europe when a sudden storm came up.
"There's a small isle ahead. Big enough for us to land on. OK if I land there until this passes?" Launchpad asked.
"No, I want to crash into the ocean and drown!" Mr. McDuck replied sarcastically.
"I'm just flying to attend a really boring meeting and I own the company! They'll have the meeting without me and give me a recap when I get there! That's ONE way of getting out of a really boring meeting."
"Hey, there have been PLENTY of times when you're such in a hurry to get where you're going, you insist I fly on no matter what! I'm glad this isn't one of them, it looks like a nasty storm, but like one that's not going to last long." Launchpad said.
"Don't tell me this island not on the charts?" Mr. McDuck asked, seeing the island was small and empty of "human "inhabitation.
"Of course it's on the charts! All islands are on charts, have been for decades! But there are plenty of small islands here nobody goes to because they are too small or too rocky or have no fresh water or are too far off the beaten track!" Launchpad answered. "It's not called the Thousand Islands for nothing!"
"This island is so small if you built an airport on it, you wouldn't have room to build anything else! It's so rocky, building anything on it would be difficult and expensive! So why would anybody bother with it?" Launchpad explained.
Launchpad landed with his usual perfection, Mr. McDuck had his usual panic attack over nothing, screaming about crashing when Launchpad did nothing of the sort. Par for the course.
Hardly had they landed, did the storm REALLY get nasty. It rained so hard, they might as well been under water. The winds blew and whipped around. It was a good thing they were on the ground, even Launchpad would have trouble with a storm like this.
When the wild weather cleared in little more than an hour, Launchpad got out of the plane to clear the branches and downed trees that blocked his make shift "runway".
You can imagine his...and Mr. McDuck's... surprise when the locals made their appearance. Our heroes found themselves surrounded by several normal sized monkeys and one King Kong sized ape.
Mr. McDuck and Launchpad stared at it for a second or two before doing what anybody seeing such a BIG ape would do: RUN!
The monkeys and the ape chased them.
"Head for those thick trees up ahead! That big ape can't get thur that thick undergrowth and those close together trees!" Mr. McDuck said.
"I just hope I can get thur them!" Launchpad replied.
But the ape was a LOT bigger than Launchpad. And while Launchpad climbed over the undergrowth and ducked under the trees and other wise got around them, the ape didn't seem to understand why he couldn't just run thur like the little monkeys could. Soon, the huge ape was good and stuck.
The monkeys stopped chasing our heroes to rescue their large friend from his predicament.
"Let's circle around and head back to the plane! Maybe we can get off this island before they get back!" Mr. McDuck barked.
And they had the perfect opportunity to do so...only Mr. McDuck saw some other monkeys playing with three piles of gems: diamonds, rubies and emeralds, each gem the size of a hen's egg. "Mighty Joe Young" was no place in sight.
"We're not going anywhere until we get those jewels, are we?" Launchpad sighed.
"Of course not!" Mr. McDuck replied.
"We can't fly out of here, get reinforcements and come back? Those gems must of been here for thousands of years! They can't keep a little while longer?" Launchpad asked.
Launchpad knew how this works: he takes the risks, Mr. McDuck keeps the gems. What are you going to do?
Launchpad likes taking chances and running risks. Working for Mr. McDuck gives him plenty of opportunity to go for the jazz. That doesn't mean Launchpad wants to get himself killed, however.
"No, we can't. And there's why." Mr. McDuck replied.
And he pointed to Magica flying on her broomstick over a distance island.
"Magica must be looking for those jewels, too. Think of the kind of wicked magic she might do with them. Or with the money she can get if she get for selling them." Mr. McDuck replied.
Launchpad knew that Mr. McDuck was right. Even if it was just a coincidence, even if Magica wasn't looking for the gems...she'd find them soon, if they didn't get them first. And do Lord knows what with them.
"We're not going to steal them, are we? Those monkeys found them first." Launchpad objected.
"We could trade for them. But what can we trade with? Monkeys only like food, and they can climb trees and get fruit easier than we can!" Mr. McDuck asked.
"Fish? They eat bugs, so they're not vegetarians. Maybe they like fish. But I don't think they know how to catch fish." Launchpad suggested.
So Mr. McDuck took a tree branch and sharpened it against a rock. Mr. McDuck tied a vine to it and threw it into the river. Mr. McDuck speared a fish and pulled on the vine and drew it from the river. Mr. McDuck offered the fish to a monkey and pointed to the gems. The monkey offered him a small gem and pointed to the spear.
"I think it wants me to teach it to make a spear!" Mr. McDuck said.
He showed the monkey to take a branch and sharpen it against a rock. Once the monkey had gotten the hang of it, it gave Mr. McDuck the pile of rubies for that knowledge. (1)
The monkey tried to spear a fish, but missed by a country mile. It hooted angrily.
"You can't just throw it any old way! You have to aim at a fish! And throw it where the fish is going, not where it is! And throw it correctly!" Mr. McDuck snapped.
And he showed the monkey how to spear a fish. Once the monkey had learned how, he traded the emeralds for that knowledge.
Another monkey came up to Launchpad and pointed to the vine. Launchpad showed it how to tie the proper sort of knot. THIS monkey had watched the other one and it made a spear, threw it, speared a fish and pulled on the vine. The rope drew the spear from the water with the fish still on it. The monkey offered Launchpad the diamonds.
"See here now!" Mr. McDuck objected.
"Promise me you will leave the big ape here, in peace. Promise you won't try to capture it and put it on display and the diamonds are yours." Launchpad said.
"But I can make a great deal of money from displaying such an ape... " Mr. McDuck sputtered.
"I've seen "King Kong"! Both versions! Ditto with "Mighty Joe Young!" I somehow suspect such an ape would be a LOT more trouble than he's worth!" Launchpad said. "I'm sorry if, as a friend, I'm TRYING to stop you from committing a serious blunder!"
"You never objected to trying to capture a wild animal before! Not even a dinosaur!" Mr. McDuck replied.
"Your nephews were always around before! THEY can talk sense into you! I can't! But this time I have an incentive to offer you. The diamonds." Launchpad explained.
"Hmpf. You COULD keep the diamonds and get rich yourself..." Mr. McDuck began.
"I don't WANT to be rich! I see what you go thur with the Beagle Boys, the IRS, (2) the spongers, chiselers and dead-beats! And frankly, you can KEEP it! Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear." Launchpad replied.
ELSEWHERE, what IS that giant ape up to?
Well, he can't climb trees, he's too big and heavy. But he can reach up and bring food down. Only it takes a lot of food to fill him. And he misses the trees, misses playing with the little monkeys. Then he sees Magica. And Magica sees him.
"Well. well. A giant ape, like in the movies. Such a creature might be very useful to me. Very useful indeed." Magica muttered.
And she flew towards the giant ape, intending to enslave it.
However, Magica had failed to clear that with the giant ape. He had no interest in being enslaved. Magica tried to use her magic on it, but whenever she got close enough, it swatted her.
()()Why am I wasting time like this? I'll come back later when Big Boy here is asleep. I can enchant him them. He won't be hard to find. ()() Magica thought.
So went to search the island for the Magic wand she had seen in her crystal ball. She soon found it...some of the monkeys were playing with it. AND Mr. McDuck and Launchpad were nearby and saw her.
"What are YOU two doing HERE?" she asked.
"We just landed to escape a storm!" Launchpad said.
"You won't get my jewels, you witch!" Mr. McDuck said.
"That's sorceress, and don't you forget it! And WHAT gems am I going to steal?" Magica said. (3)
"Er...Nothing! Forget I said anything!" Mr. McDuck backtracked.
But it didn't do any good. It never does.
"A little Truth spell will loosen your tongue! " Magica said.
Poof! She cast a Truth spell on Mr. McDuck.
"Now, tell me. What gems?" Magica asked.
"Why, the piles of rubies, emeralds and diamonds the monkeys gave me." Mr. McDuck said, despite him trying desparately to keep his beak shut.
"Then you're not after my magic wand?" Magica blurted, before she could stop herself.
"WHAT magic wand?" Mr. McDuck asked.
"Em..er...Nothing! Forget I said anything!" Magica said.
"There's a magic wand here someplace! And you're after it!" Mr. McDuck guessed.
"I never said that!" Magica said.
The monkeys had heard all this talk. And one of them ran, got what was obliviously a magic wand (long, pencil-shaped, black with white tips) and offered it to Mr. McDuck.
Magica tried to grab the wand away from the monkey, who refused to let go of it. The monkey wanted to trade for it, not give it away. Mr. McDuck handed the monkey some free peppermints he had gotten (he was saving them for his nephews.)
"Trade you!" Mr. McDuck said.
And Mr. McDuck grabbed the wand. The monkey had never seen peppermints before, but they smelled good and he was curious. The monkey let go of the wand. Magica still had a iron grip on the wand and Mr. McDuck wouldn't let go, either. They started pulling and tugging at the wand, neither stopping. The wand started to give off sparks and smoke and to make alarming noises. Both Magica and Mr. McDuck ignored this and kept pulling and tugging.
"You can't stop me from taking the wand!" Magica screamed.
"But I can!" said Launchpad.
Launchpad had quite enough of this. He knew the two of them could keep this up till doomsday. And he didn't like all the smoke and sparks and noises the wand was making. If somebody didn't stop this soon, something highly unpleasant would happen.
Launchpad grabbed the wand and before anybody could stop him, he broke the silly thing across his knee.
"No!" Magica said.
Hardly did the wand break when two things happen: the giant ape (who had heard all the racket and come to watch from a safe distance) shrunk in size. So did the three piles of gems the monkeys had given Mr. McDuck. Soon, the "ape" was the size of the monkeys. For that exactly what he was: a monkey who had been born without a tail. And the gems shrunk until they were worthless pebbles. As they had been originally.
"The wand! It made small things bigger!" Magica said "It made that tailless monkey huge and those gem pebbles big!" (4)
"You didn't even know what the stupid wand DID and you wanted to steal it ANYWAY?" Launchpad asked. "It could of done something totally useless or been nothing but trouble!"
"You broke the stupid wand without knowing what would happen if you did that!" Magica retorted.
"I had to do SOMETHING or we'd be here until next century!" Launchpad replied.
"The monkeys must have found the wand and accidentally made the gems big and their tailless friend huge!" Mr. McDuck said. "Once Launchpad broke it, the spell was broken and they returned to their normal size!"
"Without the wand and without the giant ape, there is nothing here I can use! Nothing to interest me!" Magica said. "I will not waste any more time here, I'm going home!"
And Magica hopped on her broomstick and went home.
"Well, Launchpad, we might as well go home to Duckburg. Not only is that boring meeting WELL over, everybody there has given up on me showing up and gone home. I'll call them and apologize. But I'm NOT telling them what happened!" Mr. McDuck said.
The End.
(1) Before you say "impossible", may I remind you that chimps sharpen sticks and "fish" for termites with them?
(2)Just because Rich people like Mr. McDuck don't pay taxes doesn't mean the IRS doesn't TRY to collect from them. And let's face it, the easiest way to get them off your back is to shut up and pay.
(3) Disney insists Magica is a sorceress, not a witch. Whatever.
(4) In "Shipwrecked" MR. MCDUCK LEAVES THE GEMS AND THE GIANT APE ON THE ISLAND AND SAILS OFF WITHOUT THEM?
Right. Sure. They also didn't explain where the giant ape or the gems came from.